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No. 39] SOME INSCRIPTIONS FROM U.P.
247 The characters belong to the North Indian (Siddhamätrika) alphabet of the seventh or eighth century A.D. The record bears no date. Lines 1-2 refer to the victorious reign of a king named Manorathavarmadēva and lines 2-3 to a kirti of one who was meditating on the said king's feet (or, was favoured by them). The word kārti means a fame-producing work. But it is difficult to determine whether it was used to indicate the sculptured stone bearing our inscription or a structure of which it formed a part. The name of the subordinate of king Manõrathavarman, who was responsible for the kirti, cannot be satisfactorily deciphered. But it may be Bhārativarman.
King Manõrathavarman and his subordinate mentioned in our record are not known from any other source. It is also difficult to say whether the king ruled over the Varanasi region before the death of king Harshavardhana of Thanesar and Kanauj in 647 A.D. or after that date and before the expansion of the power of king Yaśövarman (c. 728-53 A.D.) of Kanauj over the area in question. We know that the Maukhari king Grahavarman, who was the son of Avantivarman and was ruling over wide regions of U. P. and Bihar, was defeated and killed in his encounter with the invading forces of the Gauda'king Saśānka and the Mālava (East Malwa) king Dēvagupta about 605 A.D. and that Harshavardhana, a relation of Grahavarman and originally the king of Thanesar, succeeded in driving out the Gaudas and Mālavas from the Maukhari dominions and in ultimately annexing U. P. and Bihar to his own dominions. But the discovery of a seal of a Maukhari king, who was another son of Avantivarman and whose name was probably Suchandravarman, seems to suggest that the Maukhari throne was not vacant on Grahavarman's death. That the Maukharis continued to rule even after Harshavardhana's death is indicated by an inscription referring to Bhögavarman,
the crest-jewel of the illustrious Varmans of the valorous Maukhari race', as the son-in-law of king Adityasēna (672 A.D.) of Magadha and the father-in-law of king Sivadēva II of Nepal. These facts appear to suggest that the Maukharis were ruling over some parts of U. P. as feudatories of Harshavardhana during the life time of that monarch. Manõrathavarman of our record was probably a scion of the Maukhari family.
TEXT 1 Siddham [ll*] Sri-Manorathavarmmadāvasya prava2 [rddha]māna-vijaya-rājyē tat-păd-ānu[ddhyā]3 [ta-bri-Bhā]rativarm[madēvasya k]ir[tt]i[b] [ll*]
III.-Inscription at Amawa The village of Amawa belongs to the Bhadohi Tabsil of the Varanasi District, within the jurisdiction of the Gopiganj Police Station. An inscription in one line engraved on the pedestal of a broken image was discovered at the village by Mr. R. G. Pandeya, Exploration Assistant of the Department of Archaeology, Mid-Eastern Circle, Patna. The characters of the record belong to the North Indian (Siddhamātřikā) alphabet of about the seventh century A.D. Some of the letters exhibit the hollow-triangle type of top mātrā. It reads :
Hari-śrēshthi-dharma[dējā(yaḥ)|
"The pious gift of Hari-frēshțhin.” The sign of punctuation at the end of the inscription is interesting as it is also found in some of the Jägēbvar inscriptions edited below (cf. No. VI-A 1, line 4, eto.).
1 Abovo, Vol. XXVIII, p. 184. * Ibid., Vol. XXX, p. 296. • Ibid., Vol. XXIV, p. 284, note 8. . Ind. Ant., Vol. IX, p. 181, verse 13.
From impressions. • Expressed by symbol, * The reading of the letters and signs within brackets in this line is not. beyond doubt.
